 with experience in art, technology, and machine learning. Dr. Sue Kim, who is an assistant professor at Ewha University and has background in research and machine learning and climate science. So she's in Korea right now, and there is a slight difference with the time change because of daylight savings. So I think we think that she might've mixed up the time since we have a shift here and the shift hasn't happened in Korea yet. So we hope that she'll be able to join us soon. And then finally, we have Dr. Steve Savage, who is an assistant professor at Northeastern University, where she also directs the Northeastern Civic AI Lab, merging computer science with civics to solve real-world problems. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today. So our first question is, what motivated you to pursue a career in STEM and what was your educational path to get there? Hi, I can start with that. So, hey everyone, I'm Valerie. As Isabella said, I'm a software engineer at Humane, which is a startup here in Silicon Valley. I grew up in Silicon Valley. So obviously there was a lot of exposure to the world of computer science and all of that amazing engineering that happens here. I have always loved to just build things. Actually, a lot of that started with more of the arts. I love to paint, I love to draw, do storytelling. And so I'd really like just like crafting with my hands and making something that didn't exist before. So I was very lucky that my high school offered computer science as one class during my senior year. So I took it and ended up really liking, it was like another tool to use to build things with. So I really enjoyed that. And when I went to college, decided to keep taking classes in the field and really got lucky to find the computer graphics program at Stanford, which was really allowed me to blend my love of art and my love of technology. And so yeah, I've always just been really interested in continuing that path of how do you blend technology and art to create really cool experiences so that people can really enjoy exploring the world around them or telling a good story or sharing good messages through technology and art. So that's how I got here. I'll share now my story and thank you, Valerie, for sharing yours. And thank you, Isabella, and San Francisco Public Library for inviting us. It's such an honor to be here. So I originally, when I started college, I joined civil engineering. And I actually didn't think that I would study computer. What I studied was computer engineering and my brother was really good at computers. And so I was actually usually intimidated by that. And so I thought that it had to be extremely good to get into that field. And what happened was that everyone in college, we were all forced to take a programming class. And I was just kind of passing through that programming class. I was also focused on some of the more interesting classes for me, which was civil engineering. But then, within that programming class, we had to propose a project. And I proposed a project that I didn't really think much of it. But anyway, I proposed it. And then some guys in my class, they had to propose their own project and they came up to the class and they were like, oh, we actually really liked her project. And so we're gonna do this exact same thing that she just said that she was gonna do. And then the professor was like, oh, great, we're gonna have a competition here. So both teams can do the exact same project. I didn't think much of it. I was like, okay, neat. For me, it was something completely indifferent. But then at the end of the class, these guys came up to me and they said to me, we're gonna take this competition very seriously and we're obviously going to beat you because you're a woman and we're men and we're better than you. And so that motivated me. So that comment, I looked at them and was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. I acted like it didn't bother me, but it did. And so that was a great motivation for me to, I started working very hard on that project. So every day after class, whenever I had any free time, I would just work on my programming assignment because I had to beat them. And so working nonstop on my programming assignment meant that I became actually very good at programming because I was constantly practicing, constantly practicing. And so the takeaway from this is it might be that you don't feel very good at STEM. You can actually become very good at STEM by practicing. And at the end of the day, what happened was, we presented the final projects. They came up, I presented mine, et cetera. The professor was like, well, this is the best project I've ever seen, et cetera. The other team from the team of guys that came up and intimidated me, et cetera, they actually didn't present anything. They had, they were not actually very, they were, I would say, very talented, but they didn't know a lot about hard work. And so they didn't do anything for their final project. And so this is also a good learning experience, which is many times, if you practice, if you put in the hard work, you can many times beat the people who have talent. They were very talented. They came from a high school where they were taught how to do amazing programming, but I was able to reach them and actually beat them because of that, because I put in the hard work. So that's a takeaway that I would say, you know what, it might be that you feel, oh, you have these classmates that are extremely good in computer science. Don't worry about it. If you put in the hard work, you can usually eventually even surpass them. So many times hard work will overcome talent. And suddenly becoming very good at computer science after I put in a lot of that work really motivated me to get into computer engineering. And so I switched from civil engineering to computer engineering because I suddenly just love programming and I was actually very good at that. And so that's my takeaway for you all. Thank you so much for sharing. Definitely agree on how hard work can get you anywhere. And I hope that everyone will put in the hard work to get wherever they want to go to. You all have a very unique job that combined a variety of sciences Could you explain which sciences your jobs combine and how they mix? Sure, so since I'm more traditionally like I study computer science and now I'm a software engineer, obviously there's computer science which itself usually involves a lot of logic, you know, understanding how to take a big problem, break it down and systematically, you know, create a solution from those pieces. But you know, the fundamentals that computer science and especially a lot of visual compute relies on is a lot of math. For us, it's a lot of linear algebra, like understanding 3D geometries, a lot of cool tricks to optimize how things are represented so that you can render things onto a screen really quickly or like create cool effects, like on your Zoom blur backgrounds and things like that. Another really cool thing about computer graphics that actually drew me in is that it's actually very closely related to physics. I kind of joke that it's like, oh, if you kind of want to be a physicist but you don't want to be like intent, computer graphics is really fun because you have to understand things like how does light transport work, right? Like how do colors work? How does light bounce around a scene to reach your eyes and create what you see? Because essentially all of computer graphics is emulating that and then putting it onto your screen. So it's really fun because to me, I love the natural world and like learning more about it. So to me, the physics part of that is the really exciting thing that really gets me going sometimes with this field. So yeah, I would say those are probably the main sciences that I work with on a daily basis. But yeah, I'm really interested to hear what Dr. Savage has. Thank you so much. So some of the fields that I'm involved in is of course computer science. Now within the area of computer science, I also, I particularly work in the area of human computer interaction where in human computer interaction, we care a lot about what are humans doing? How, what are the needs that humans have? And then based on those needs, we're creating technologies and we're evaluating how humans interact with those technologies that we are creating. So in order to accomplish this, we connect on one hand with psychology. Why psychology? Psychology has methods for understanding what are people's needs? How are they interacting with technology directly with different artifacts? And so psychology teaches you also how to do interventions with people. So we take a lot of psychology in order to be able to study people and then also evaluate how people interact with that technology that we are creating. Now I also connect with a lot of social scientists and a lot of philosophy. Why philosophy? And in my case, I'm also interested in designing technology for society, have an impact in society. And philosophy has studied a lot about society's problems and has offered mechanisms, frameworks in order to propose solutions to address society's most critical problems. And so philosophy offers you a way in which you can start to understand these complex societal problems and also design solutions for them, which is part of what I do as a computer scientist. Also, I connect with the field of political scientists. Political science, I'm designing a lot of technologies for governments. And so political science also offers me way to understand what is the political ecosystem that a government is embedded in and then be able to design computational solutions for those governments that are appropriate to them while also understanding the political context that is involved. Thank you. Thank you so much. Those are really cool mixes of sciences and interdisciplinary studies. The next question is, can you discuss a research project or a scientific project that you're currently working on and what is its potential impact on society? Sure, yeah, I can talk a little bit about what I'm working right now at Humane. So it's great that Dr. Savage actually talked about human computer action because that's what our company is focused on. Essentially the company was founded on the idea that we have all this great technology in our lives, right? The phones, the mobile phones that we have starting from the iPhone, laptops, computers, like super powerful tools that we can use to stay connected and learn and everything. But there is a fundamental thing that's happened which is we see a lot of people spending a lot of time on their phones, right? And maybe not engaging with each other in the real world or really spending time in the real world, outside. And so the fundamental question here is like, okay, given the advances in technology, what is the next way we can interact with technology such that we can benefit from all this technology, AI, everything else that we've created while helping you remain in the moment a little bit more? So our company works on this little, we call it the AI pin. And essentially it's a little wearable that you can wear that helps you, like you can ask it questions, use it as a way to connect with your friends and family, to message, and also has vision capabilities so that you can ask about the world around you. And so the vision there is really like, as Dr. Said, it's like really hard, right? This is a very nebulous question of like, what is a good experience for people that allows them to in these positive habits, right? And there's no really set answer. It's really hard to have a very clear vision of what that is. And so a lot of our day-to-day work is like, okay, we have really cool technology that we put into this product. How do you design the experience so that we're able to accomplish that mission of having people be engaged in the real world while taking advantage of the technology that's available? And of course, you know, like, for example, with the iPhone, it's a great tool. It did come with some consequences. And so that's the question that we have to think about when we develop these new products is like, we have a vision. Maybe there will be unintended consequences. How do we make sure we are thinking about that and engaging with the community so that we are aware of what could happen because of these things we are putting out in the world? It's not like a fear-based thing. I think it's just more of, you know, we need to engage with the people that we are building for so that we build the right products that help them do the things that they really wanna do. Excellent. Thank you so much, Valerie, for sharing that. So right now, a thing that my lab has been focused on is designing generative AI tools that empower gig workers. Something to consider is that right now, generative AI, and maybe you guys can write in the chat if you have heard about generative AI, it's a new type of technology that has been displacing workers, especially gig workers, from their jobs. And so we wanted to think about, okay, right now this technology is removing a lot of people from their jobs. How could we rethink this technology? How could we design it to empower workers, bring and give workers the opportunity to collaborate with the technology instead of having the technology completely displace them? And the impact that it's having on society is that hopefully this way we can think more about these types of human AI collaborations where humans are not no longer removed from the ecosystem because of AI, but rather they have a say of how this technology should look like and the ways in which this technology can help them. Oh, and I see Dr. Kim has also joined. Hello, Dr. Kim. Hi, nice to meet you. Sorry about this technical difficulty. I was not able to use my laptop. Now I joined with my cell phone. Wonderful, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us despite the difference in time. I know that it's an awkward hour for since you're in Korea right now. Could you introduce yourself and the different sciences, your job combines and what you're working on? Sure. My name is Sugyeong Kim and I'm an assistant professor at Iwa Women's University. I'm working on the research which is the intersection between science and AI. So my past research experience includes the climate AI, material discovery using AI and also medical health care AI and so on. Thank you so much. So our next question is for all the panelists. How does creativity tie into your job? Cool, I'll start with that one again I guess. Yeah, I think there's two levels, right? One is the more obvious which is when you're in engineering or STEM or I guess the engineering part of STEM. A lot of times you're trying to build things that don't exist yet, right? And so there's a lot of creativity where you have all these tools at your disposal, right? You have your different frameworks, AI, coding and the idea is like, how do you take these tools from your toolbox and figure out a way to put them together to create something new? There's a lot of creativity in that and even just like generating the solution to your problem, but almost the more interesting part is also how do you even figure out the problem that you wanna solve in the first place, right? Like I said before we work in HCI which is can be very nebulous, right? What does the experience that feels good mean, right? Given that we are also used to certain ways of interacting with technology, what is a new way to do that? There's a lot of creativity involved in that and so our team in particular, the computer vision team, we work really closely with the designers at our company to sort of brainstorm, do proof of concepts, say, hey, what if we tried this form of interaction? How does that feel? How do we know that that feels good? Okay, trying to think outside the box and think about what is something we haven't tried before that people haven't tried before and then can we build it with the tools at our disposal? So I would say there's a lot of creativity there and even trying to think about what sort of new interactions are out there. Okay, I can go next. So the creativity is really critical part in my research because like most of the research question that I'm tackling with is also the same question that the scientists tackling to sort of their problem. So oftentimes it requires the ability to think deep and dive deep to the practical or theoretical problem. So the mathematical creativity and scientific creativity is really critical part in my job. And maybe I don't know, I would say that I use creativity for almost everything that I do. Creativity for thinking about what problems am I going to focus on? What type of designs am I going to create? Also right now I'm leading a research lab and so I also have to be creative and how I'm managing students and thinking about best workplace practices and also how I can get, for example, different stakeholders to be involved with my research. I would say that many times when it takes also creativity and figuring out, okay, how do I get these new collaborations? And it's very exciting. Thank you so much. So our next question is how do you balance the pursuit of innovation and ethical considerations in your work? Yeah, I can go first. So like I said, as one of my research topic is the climate AI, there was many, many times that I faced the concern regarding the ethical validity of the research, like for example, I used to be working on climate intervention, which is people actually can engineer the climate event. It is double-edged sword. It can be used to tackling some of the tough challenge of the world like climate changes or so on, but it can be also used as the climate weapon. Although I cannot choose the whole trend of the research of the world, one thing that I can choose is which projects that I can pursue. So I rely on my ethical judgment, whether the output product of my research will be used to impact to the world in a good way. I can put all of my efforts for that, but otherwise, like for example, climate weapon and so on, I would rather not going for that project. And in my work, I would say that it's a lot of, sometimes you get very excited with a project, but you also have to think about, okay, who could get potentially hurt with this new technology that we're developing, especially when I work with a lot of vulnerable communities. And so I really have to think about, okay, is this technology actually useful for this community? Could it create unintentional harms? And it's also thinking about that it is a balance, but it is also very important to think about the harms that your technology could create. And so I think that you cannot overlook those ethical aspects. Yeah, for me, I think, you know, I think here in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of hype and it's always very much about exciting new technology, right? Like AI, generative AI, oh my gosh, we're gonna change the world, right? Silicon Valley is very much about changing the world. I think a very important part there, right? When there is a lot of exciting stuff that we're building is making sure that we say, like keep a lot of humility, right? We are still people, people with a very specific world view and we don't know everything. And so something that for me that I try to remind myself is like, when there's a lot of excitement about something is ultimately what matters is the problem you're solving, right? And to really understand the problem you're solving, you really have to understand what it's like to have that problem. And so a big part of that I think that anyone in STEM can benefit from is engaging people who are part of those communities, kind of like Dr. Savages, which is are you engaging people who have different viewpoints, right? Are you engaging with people who are not in the Silicon Valley bubble to really understand, like what are their actual problems, right? So that you don't just kind of drink your own Kool-Aid and kind of run off with something that you think is really cool. I do think that's something that we have to remind ourselves all the time in order to be really responsible citizens who have this power of STEM and engineering to create new things. Thank you so much. So our next question is, can you share any experiences of mentorship or having a mentor in the STEM field and how has it influenced your career trajectory? Yeah, I can go first. Like for the experience of getting the mentorship, I can, my previous manager reminds me right now, like she was like amazing woman tech leader and she nurtured in many different ways. Like I have obviously the imposter syndrome. Like I always, I was not always confident about the things that I've done. And I always think like it's really hard for me to describe like what I did with a high confidence. She actually encouraged me to do what I choose to do and supported me in many different ways. So like from that experience, I decided to be a mentor of the young female students. That's why I'm here in Iwan Women's University. So I would say that my previous manager who nurtured me like really like a real sister kind of choose me to like kind of help me to decide the academic career and being a very nurturing professor for my young female student. Yeah, I think probably similar. I think for me, there's so many mentors, right? But fundamentally the good mentors that I really had kind of two things. One was they created a space for me to have new opportunities to do things that maybe I wasn't that good at originally, right? Especially as a young person coming out of college not knowing what they're doing. And they also would at the same time provide guidance, right? Like here's how to think about a problem. So probably the first one that I can really think of, you know, shout out to Mike Bough. He was my PhD mentor while I was doing research in Ron Fedcu's lab at Stanford. He really like, I did not know what I was doing when I started the research project but he really like was very patient, right? He kind of created the space for me to be able to ask, you know, quote unquote dumb questions but questions that, you know, you don't know when you haven't done it before. So he created that safe space but he also would really have the patience to walk me through. Here's how you can set up very simple things, right? How do you set up a safe project? How do you debug in an efficient way? How do you think about these masks that maybe you're not super familiar with? And so I think he had that right blend of giving me space to be independent and explore but also giving me the guidance to show me a better way of how to do things that he had from his experience. And yeah, and in many mentors, I think throughout my career have shown the same thing which I've been very lucky. So I was also told a lot that I needed to find a mentor and so I proactively aimed to find someone that could be my mentor and we started working a lot together and I would say that, for example, that mentor helped me to be able to do projects that I would have not been able to do before and be able to reach certain goals that I would have not been able to do before. However, I also do have to recognize that, for example, at certain points, that mentor started to create perhaps unintentional barriers for me. So for example, that mentor would not allow me to apply for certain job positions because he didn't feel that I was good enough and I actually felt I was good enough because of my profile. And so I think also a key thing is to recognize that a mentor at a certain point in your life might be very good but it might be that at another point in your life you might evolve and it might be that your mentor maybe is even jealous of you and that is something that can happen. And so what I did was that I basically fired my mentor fired in a symbolic way because I wasn't paying him anything even though I was actually doing a lot of work for my mentor, a lot of free labor. And so what I realized was, you know what, I'm gonna do all of this great work that I'm doing for my mentor I'm gonna do it for somebody that believes in me much more because I actually do think that I can reach those big things that I have in mind. And so I started working I found basically another mentors that could support me. And I realized that, and so it's for example maybe you have a mentor at a certain period of time in your life and it might be that at another period of time that mentor might not support you, that can happen. And so you have to be proactive and finding other mentors. And also considering one thing that I'm very conscious of is how hard it can be to actually find supportive mentors. At least that was for me. And so I'm always actively involved in trying to be a mentor for other women. I'm Latina and so for Hispanics I'm always actively trying to also mentor them and giving the time, right? Like that's why we're here today on a Sunday afternoon. It's important to also give back to the community what you have received. And so it might also be for example that what I would recommend actually all of you is that as you're finishing high school to think back about and look at who can you help from your high school? For example, you could reach out to juniors in your high school, freshmen in your high schools that you can support. And so try to also be that mentor for the people in your high school even if you feel like, oh, I don't have a lot of experience but actually you might have experience. So always aim to give back to your community. Thank you so much for that conclusion. Our next question is did you ever face a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome and how did you overcome it? Yeah. I can, I can, sorry about that, yeah. No, go ahead, Dr. Kim. Oh yeah, I'll be really quick. As I mentioned earlier, I still have a imposter syndrome and I don't have that much confidence of my work but I'm trying to overcome it every day. So one trick that I learned is like when you pitch something and when you present something if you are struggling to have a confident about it think like your best friend presenting it and then that make me more comfortable and be confident like nobody knows better than you about your work. So you're presenting your own work to explaining and teach other people, so be confident. Yeah, so I think lack of confidence happens all the time. Like no matter who you are, I think I experience on a daily basis, I'm surrounded by such wonderful and smart people all the time at my job, something like, oh my gosh, how will I ever feel like them? How are they able to solve such problems and have such a clear view? But something I try to do to remind myself right these days is it's a change in the mindset. I think imposter syndrome or lack of confidence for me at least is usually because I recognize that there is either skill or an area that I'm not an expert in or proficient in or there's gaps in my knowledge. And so instead of thinking like, oh, I don't know it yet or I'm not there yet, I'm trying to change it more into that's exciting, because that's an opportunity for me to grow into that, right? Here's the speak like I will never be bored because I will always have something to learn. And so I'm really trying to rephrase it as if I can recognize my weaknesses or recognize things that I want to grow into, that gives me the opportunity to then go after them. And I think having that mindset and then of course some support systems from the people around me, I think that helps me try to slowly reframe that and always remind myself that no one knows everything. And so you shouldn't have that much pressure to be like, I must know everything at this age that other people have with like much more experience. So kind of what I would encourage people. Yeah, I would say that, so what happened to me was that I had a mentor who did not believe in me and he basically was telling me that there were a lot of jobs that I could not apply to because of my profile. And he told me that in order for me to apply to those jobs, I had to be, and he pointed me to the profile of a male Chinese student. And so I looked at the profile of the male Chinese student to see, okay, what do I need to do in order to be able to apply to those jobs in order to be able to have the same, in order to have the profile that my mentor says I need to have. I looked at the profile of the male Chinese student and I realized I actually have way more work than the male Chinese student, way more work. And suddenly it hit me that my mentor actually didn't have any belief in me. And so I realized that at that point was when I realized I cannot have imposter syndrome because nobody believes in me either way. So I can't afford to not have confidence in myself because nobody has confidence in me already. And so that was very transformative because I realized I need to have actually a lot of confidence in every single thing that I do because nobody believes in me. And so I would encourage all of you, it might be that nobody believes in you and that's fine. You know what, it's their problem. You need to have that confidence and you need to show up and explain to people all of the amazing things that you're doing. I later also want to emphasize, it's very important that you also create networks with women who do believe in you and who can help you to overcome that imposter syndrome by lifting each other up together. There I connected with, I have connected for example with a woman who has created a startup that's called Woman Index. She basically focuses on teaching women about how can you present all of the amazing things that you're doing so that people know about your work. And it's a lot about personal branding. Why is it important to have personal branding and not have imposter syndrome? Because if nobody knows about you, nobody knows the amazing things that you are doing, they won't be able to give you opportunities. A lot of times people are thinking, oh, I have this amazing project, who should I invite? Who should I give this opportunity for? And they might not have anybody in mind. But if you're constantly sharing with people all of the things that you're doing, you're gonna be the person that comes to mind for them and that's gonna facilitate opportunities. And so I think it's important to think about, okay, not only just to show off that, oh, they didn't believe in me, I'll show them, but also to realize that by being able to broadcast about your work, people can, you can be on top of people's minds and that can facilitate opportunities. Thank you so much. I wanted to add on with some examples for female affinity spaces in science for high schoolers. So one is Girls Who Code. I know there's a lot of chapters in high school when you are perfectly capable of starting your own too. It's very easy to do. And then there's a large community of different chapters in high schools, but also in college, if any of you are going to college next year like I am. And then there's also the National Center for Women in Technology and CWIT. Some of you might have found the event that way since I know they featured it in their newsletter last week and it also creates a link between a bunch of different women across the world in science and computer science. So our next question is before we open up to audience questions is how do you prioritize self-care and maintaining your health while being in pursuing demanding careers instead? I could right now respond this question first. I think it's important that you identify what are the values that you have, what things are important for you because a lot of times nobody else will make that time for those things other than you. So for example, maybe some of your priorities and things that relate to your wellbeing and self-care is maybe it's doing exercise. Maybe it's even going out with your boyfriend, going out with your husband, having some time to spend with your mom. That might all be related to your self-care. And so it's important that you prioritize those things. So maybe you're gonna be, okay, you know what? I'm gonna work on my engineering projects that I really want, but I'm actually also gonna make some time to go out on a date with my boyfriend. Or if you're a mother, I don't know if we have any women who are mothers already. It might be also being able to spend time with your kids or even having the time to, for example, become a mom, like plan all of that. So I think it's important that you do yourself define your priorities. Also, you don't let society define them for you because for example, maybe your priorities can be very different than what society is trying to impose on you or what your family is trying to impose on you. And so having clear what are your priorities, I think could be very helpful and important. Yeah, I'll tag on to that. I think I agree with that last statement, right? Is knowing what you want at whatever current stage of life that you're at, right? It will help you a lot in figuring out your boundaries and how you wanna live your life. There may be cycles where you're saying my greatest priority is my career, right? I think I had, I've basically been in that period for the last few years where I do focus a lot on career and willing to work long hours because the problem is very interesting and I'm entertaining my mind. But at the same time, right? I think as Dr. Savage said, is like certain red lines that I have, right? Which is like, I need sleep. I cannot have less than seven hours of sleep and I have to exercise in the morning. Like if I don't, I am a mess and I feel terrible. And part of that is recognizing that when you don't have, if you don't take care of those, I'm actually less productive and work anyways. So then why don't I just take that half an hour to go exercise, right? But again, right? These are cycles and they may change, right? Maybe you have a period where say, hey, at the stage of my life, I'm prioritizing this goal. I think knowing that is really important so that you can then schedule yourself around achieving that for yourself. But as Dr. Savage said, if you don't really have a clear view or you're letting someone else kind of dictate what you think you should be doing, then it can get really stressful because you're like, I have to do everything. I have to do all this stuff that people expect of me and it's not really coming from your heart, from the life that you want to live. So that maybe sounds a little bit like, I don't know, hoity-toity, but I do believe in that. If a lot of it is you having a clear vision of what you want out of life right now and then making the space for that. Yeah. I can take next like all of us, including me, living in very demanding career, like every day is like a very hectic schedule and we have a deadline and so on. But over time, as I build my career until so far, I realized that all of these things, more like a marathon. So if you're not healthy and if you're not happy, you cannot do it. And actually there's no meaning that you're doing. So for me, I always try to prioritize my family and self-care and try to make time and less like half a day per week to spend the time with my husband, my mom and my sister. And for me, like I do exercise a lot. So yeah. So what I realized is like whatever the ambitious score you have, you can do it only when you're healthy and happy. If you're not healthy, you cannot do it. Thank you so much. So we'll now open to audience questions. And if there are no questions, we'll also have extra questions as well. Hey, we have a few questions from the audience in the Q&A. But before I read out the first question, please take a moment to complete a simple poll. It's identical to the one we did at the beginning. So the first question we have is how does this event, or you're participating in this event contribute to the community or the industry that you work in? I think I can answer this one. If the panelists want to add on, please feel free to. So this project was designed to combat the different stereotypes that exist in STEM. And I focused on computer science, and that's the science I'm most curious about at this moment. And I also enjoy science in general. And I thought that it was really important to show how different sizes can mix and how anyone can do whatever science they want to pursue as long as they're curious about it. And that it's not linked to gender, and that it's not linked to gender or anything like societal expectations or anything like that. And so into the book that went into this project was a lot of research on why do stereotypes exist on female students being worse than their male counterparts in computer science. And the main reasons that showed up were lack of confidence and belief that computer science couldn't have a positive impact on society. And so my goal was to counter those two main stereotypes that emerge in the field of computer science so that hopefully attendees, if they have that bias, since a lot of people have bias against their own identity as well sometimes. And so I wanted to show how a computer science can have an impact and also confidence is fairly necessary in that anyone can do it if they want to. And so that was the main goal. I hope that answers the question. Thank you, Isabella. Second question, as AI takes control, computer science and coding knowledge is losing its immense power. Are there other ways that computer science, female students ought to plan for? I have some thoughts on this one. So AI, I think, is very much in the news these days and in everyone's headspace. I would encourage, AI is a tool, like okay, coding is the tool, right? When coding came out, it's a tool to build something, kind of like a paintbrush when you draw. But I'll use an analogy from art, right? When people started doing art, it's like pencil on paper and then they do sketching. And then someday, one person, somebody created the Wacom tablet and Adobe Photoshop and suddenly they had digital, now they could do layers, they could control Z and undo what they did. They could mishmash pictures together and then now people have generative AI, right? Which way they can circle a thing and say, hey, please replace this with X. At the end of the day, it's all just a tool. I think it's very important for people who are interested in engineering and in computer science to realize computer science itself is not really the problem necessarily. What's interesting is how you apply computer science to problems that you want to solve. So for example, Dr. Savage is interested in applying it to civics and Dr. Kim is interested in climate change. To me, those are like the meaty problems that are interesting and whatever tools you can use at your disposal to solve it, you should pursue. And so as a computer science, coding and stuff, that's just a tool set that's in our repertoire. I think a lot of young engineers, it's kind of exciting. You guys have a new tool to play with, AI and kind of say, how do I use this to build or understand the problems that I'm interested in? So I would say don't derive so much of your identity as a computer science from the fact that you can write, C or Java or Python and more on the fact that you can build things, using technology to solve the problem that you are interested in. And I would put a lot of emphasis on figuring out what is the problem that you are interested in solving? Thank you, Valerie. Question, how were you able to get a career in computer science or art? For example, graphic design or web design. It's extremely hard for me even though I have three plus years in the field. I guess the question might be applicable to me since I did computer graphics. It really depends. So, art and technology is such a broad spectrum, right? You have all the way from the artists, right? The people who are animating, you know, spider-verse, they're animating Spider-Man to like fly through the air. You've got people lighting artists and textures. So they're kind of using the tools to create essentially the seat, right? You also have people who are kind of like me in the middle. We write the algorithms or the tools to allow the artists to do these things. And then of course, you have a lot of foundation, right? Like the people making GPUs so that you can do this fast and the foundation technologies that run all of this. I think this is kind of an interesting question because I also actually sometimes ask myself this, right? Where do I go into with these tools that I have? I think fundamentally what I've seen having interviewed candidates, you know, for at Google and Humane and then talking with people, the people who stand out to me a lot are the people who really show their passion for something, right? I think I went to a talk at a university and one student, she raised her hand. She said, hey, like I'm interested in computer graphics but you know, everyone's talking about AI. I don't know, like I'm really interested in shaders and what was interesting is she stood out to me because she showed that she was really interested and that she could talk to me about, wow, this is why this is cool. And her enthusiasm really stood out. And I think people, you know, whether you're interviewing or trying to network or find a mentor, they will latch onto the enthusiasm. If you're enthusiastic about something, that is what's gonna make you pursue something even when the going gets tough, right? And so I would encourage you, like if you have an interest in art and technology, is just keep building projects, right? Just keep building things, start with little things. You don't have to make the whole Spider-Man movie, you know, from scratch, let's do something small and keep doing it, right? And as Dr. Savage says, do it publicly, right? Make sure people know that you're doing it. And I think that's how people are gonna realize, like, hey, like this person has these skills and here's this unique thing that they're bringing to the table. I think if you do those, you know, and you keep doing what you're interested in, you know, you keep building things and you showcase that, I think there will, you will find there's a group of people who will recognize that and will reach out and will be interested in working with you. Thank you, Valerie. So there are a couple of questions in the chat there for Isabella, one to know if you want me to ask them here or you want to type the answer. So one of the question is what inspired you to host this event? And can you provide an overview of the event purpose and objectives? Yeah, so I answered the ones we had text by, I can answer these ones out loud and I'll answer them together since they're kind of similar. So I'm going to study computer science in college and then I've also been affected as a female student by some of those gender stereotypes and prejudices in STEM against women. And so I thought it was really important for me once that I recognized them to contribute back to the community, as Dr. Savage had mentioned earlier. And one of my most marking experiences I think was going to a woman in STEM panel that NCWIT had hosted a couple of years back at an award ceremony. And I thought it was really inspirational. And since I had this opportunity to create some sort of projects that would have some sort of impact on the community around me, I chose the community that was closest, I felt to me at the time. And that was the woman in computer science community. And then I also was reflecting a lot on what has impact and what is also doable since you have to do something that a high school student couldn't organize. So I wanted it to be something I could do and then also that would have impact. And so that was the idea that behind this event was to create a sort of safe space and also a learning experience too. That's why I had emailed these specific scientists is because I thought they had really unique and interesting experiences. And I thought that it'd be a great opportunity for people to learn about these different applications of computer science. And then also see that a lot of these stereotypes are really fake and that there are ways to persevere through gender discrimination you might face in computer science fields. Thank you, Isabella. Another question, I think this one, it's for the panelists. Do you still believe that education will go in the same way as it has in the past for students with AI changing everything? As I'm in academia, I can answer that question. I do think it will change like many parts of the education but not everything. So for example, like already AI changed some part. There is a model that people, especially the student asked the question and AI both answer the student's question. And there will be some human supervision to actually tune the answer to be more personalized and educated way. So in that way, I can imagine that AI will be a great assistance to help a student understand about the topic and also how to interact with other people using AI tool that will make a big impact in education. Thank you so much, Dr. Kim. That's the last question that I see in Q&A. If anyone else have a question, please feel free to enter it in the Q&A feature in Zoom. In the meantime, I would like to ask the panelists for a lightning round of advice. So please share what you would have told yourself when you were younger or advice you would have given to women aspiring to enter STEM fields. I could start. I actually was 20 years ago, I was applying for college. And so it was actually very interesting to think about that. Like what was I doing 20 years ago? How did I feel? I think a very important lesson is the importance of perseverance. So it might be that as you're advancing your career, you are very likely to face a number of different challenges and that's just the way that life is. I think it's very important to learn, to persevere, to keep going. Find also how you can keep positive and so that you can continue advancing toward your goals. Many times you might face setbacks and also I think it's very important to understand that life is not always linear. So many times society tells you, oh, you always have to be getting a better job, a better life. It might be that in some circumstances, you might feel that you're receiving a setback, but that's okay. Many times those setbacks will help you to later on be able to reach your different goals. And so I think it's important to continue persevering and create strategies for the different goals that you have in mind. And you're creating your own pathway and so it's being creative as well for that. That's the advice that I would give to young women. Right now as you're starting your journey in college, it might be that not everything is pink and rosy and you know what, that's fine. Just keep going and you'll eventually reach your goals. Actually, when I joined the PhD, they told me a phrase that I did not understand at the time and now I do understand it, which was I think Churchill said something like, if you're going through hell, keep going. That's the advice that I would give. Keep going, don't stop. And keep that perseverance is what will allow you to win. Dr. Kim and Valerie, would you like to- They're thinking of you, I'm sure. Yeah, thank you for like Dr. Savage. That was a beautiful statement. So yeah, I mean, I would just like when I was young, like I'm grown in South Korea. I think like most East Asian country have some culture environment like a woman, like there is a different standard between woman and man and it's really difficult for the female to put yourself first. So I wouldn't say to myself that you cannot do it. So whenever I have a dream, I always kind of try to find the reason that why I cannot do it. But actually you can do it. There is nothing in the world that you cannot achieve. So whatever the goal that you have, be more ambitious and be confident because like even if you cannot do it alone, you can find always like good people to do it with you. And you can always find some way to make it achieve. So yeah, just be confident, especially for the female from the same culture back on with myself. Yeah, I think those are all, I agree with both of those answers. I think for me, I'd probably break it down into three things. One is to just, you're all so young and you're always young. You're all so young and you're always young. You're always learning. Just try things, try whatever interests you, right? Don't be afraid to try something new. I think for me, when I was young, a lot of it was like, is this the right thing to do? And I think that actually limits anyways. And so I would encourage you, unless you try a variety of things, like put yourself out there. You are in a stage where you can have a lot of breadth and try things all over the map until you try, you're not gonna figure out what actually interests you and what kind of gives you that spark. And once you have figured out that spark, then I would say the same thing I said before, which is go after it, right? Go build, go explore, go engage because that's how you're going to build up your expertise. That's how you're going to be involved and contribute. Find that thing that you can bring your unique perspective, right? For me, I think a lot of times the art and technology, it wasn't clear until I took graphics like, oh, I can bring this, my storytelling and artistic background to technology. And that's something that I bring that not everyone has. I think that's the same for everyone has that thing that they can bring to a field. And then the third thing I would say is, really develop relationships, not just like in a networking way, of course those are very important, just relationships with friends, family, mentors, colleagues. The relationships are what are going to get you through all the really tough times. I think I cannot understate how much my colleagues at my current place, when things got really tough, we liked working with each other. We would support each other. We would make sure we were taking care of each other. My family obviously is like a huge backbone of support and friends, of course, keep me sane and remind me that life is much work. So I would say that is building good relationships and making sure you're spending time on that while you're going through, your education journey is very, very important. Thank you so much. There are actually more questions in the Q&A, but the time now is three or three. I want to respect everybody's time and it's Monday morning and so, and I think Dr. Kim need to go to work. So I'd like to take the time to thank you all. Thank you Valerie, Dr. Kim and Dr. Savage. We really appreciate you guys taking the time to share with us your experience and knowledge. I want to thank Isabella for facilitating and putting this program together. Last but not least, thank you all for joining. I hope you all find the program helpful to you. Please share what you learn with others. I will send out an evaluation survey together with the recording link and a resource list prepared by Isabella to you guys in the next hour. Again, thank you everyone. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye bye now. Bye bye. Thank you.